A hammer and saw powered by faith
Niagara’s Terry Petkau has helped more than 100 families find a better life through Habitat for Humanity
Some 40 years and 120 houses ago, Terry Petkau joined his first Habitat for Humanity home-build project. It was sometime about 1981. He had graduated from St. Catharines Collegiate and moved west to Winnipeg, where he was a building inspector for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
A friend from church asked if he’d be interested in helping out at a Habitat build.
He knew a little about it: Volunteer builders. Constructing new homes for families that otherwise couldn’t afford one using donated labour and materials. Jimmy Carter was involved.
Sure, he said. Why not?
“I agreed to be at the location to help build a house on a Saturday morning, and I arrived to learn that I was the one they were waiting for to supervise the whole build project,” says Petkau, with a laugh.
“By the end of the day, we almost had the roof on the house. I was just so amazed by the camaraderie and the success we had in building a house with mostly unskilled people.”
Before long, he was hooked on Humanity.
“This is a term we often use within our organization: I was infected with ‘Habititis.’ ”
Habitat for Humanity was founded in 1976 by a couple living in the southern U.S. state of Georgia.
Their theme was “partnership housing” — using volunteer help and donated materials to build affordable, decent houses for families that otherwise couldn’t afford one.
There’s a myth that the homes are given free. In fact, a family must qualify for a no-down-payment, nointerest mortgage. Then they buy the home from Habitat for fair market value.
“The impact of owning a home and it being yours, as opposed to rental accommodation — it’s just that much more significant with the impact and financial stability on the health of the family,” says Petkau, director of safety awareness and construction for Habitat for Humanity Canada.
He can’t decide what part of the project is more meaningful for him but narrows it down to two choices.
Possibly, there’s a conflict between the Terry Petkau who likes to build things, and the Terry Petkau who wants to help people in the community.
“The first day of a build project, where you are just arriving to a stack of lumber and the foundation there ready to start building,” he says, thinking over the first option.
“So it’s that whole wall-raising experience, which is just so pivotal because you see so much work accomplished in one day … almost that barn-raising effect.”
On the other hand, there is the moment the job is done and the keys to the house are turned over to the grateful family.
“When you learn about their previous living conditions and how the impact of this new house is going to play on their family and their children, it’s amazing,” he says.
He continues: “To have the children take you on a tour of their house, and to show you their room.
It’s just amazing, and the thrill and smiles you can’t forget.”
Petkau, 65, has helped build Habitat homes across Canada and the U.S. and in India, Mexico and Iqaluit, Nunavut.
For a builder used to building North America-style homes, working in a developing country or one where a scarcity of supplies leads to innovative methods can be an eyeopener.
“You just have to accept the sometimes archaic approach, but it’s still very effective and just the way they operate there,” he says.
You can’t force your ways on them, he says, when they have learned how to make to make it work within their own system.
“One example, on quite a large build I was involved in” in India, he says with a laugh.
“We were trying to level the cement blocks we were building, and using strings and plum lines and different methods. We thought it would be a lot simpler if we had an actual level that we could use.”
So one of the crew went looking through the neighbourhood and came back with about 100 levels that were bought locally.
“And they arrived, and not one of the 100 levels had any kind of accuracy at all” and they went back to using strings.
Several times, Petkau has led building crews that included Jimmy Carter, the former U.S. president who left office in 1980 and has devoted years since then to working with Habitat for Humanity.
He has worked on more than 10 projects with Carter, sometimes as the site team leader.
“He’s such a humble man … he’s somebody who I’ve gotten to know over the years, and he’s always interested in you,” says Petkau.
“If you have the opportunity to have a one-on-one talk, he’s asking you about yourself and what is really important to you.”
He last worked with Carter in Nashville, Tenn., in 2019. Despite his age — Carter is 96 now — he was still busy, building smaller components for the home using hand tools.
Carter’s wife, Rosalynn, 93, was there, too, helping with painting.
Until recently, “They were doing all the tasks everyone else would do, even in their 90s they were still physically lifting walls, swinging a hammer. It’s just amazing.”
He’s asked, what do you call Jimmy Carter when he’s working beside you?
“There are very few people that call him Jimmy. I always just call him President Carter, even though he doesn’t expect it,” he says. “That was just my comfort zone.” Even for a president 40 years out of office, Secret Service officers stay close by.
“In the last couple of years, when we’ve come to a point where there’s a fairly heavy object needs to be lifted … I would hear President Carter say, ‘Well these guys will help.’
“So he just tells them to grab hold and help out. It’s funny often to see the Secret Service try to contribute to something but they are only doing it because President Carter asked them to.
“Otherwise, they are not at all prepared to do it, they have a responsibility and they can’t be distracted from it.”
Petkau’s sister, Beverly Larmour, calls him “one of the most generous, caring human beings I know.”
In an email, she rattles off some of his accomplishments: Giving blood more than 150 times; donating a kidney to his ailing daughter-in-law 14 months ago; cycling more than 3,000 kilometres over a six-year period to help raise $100,000 for Habitat for Humanity.
“Right from a young age, I learned from my mother (Agnes, who lives in a St. Catharines nursing home) that doing things for others is such an important aspect of what we should be doing, and it also brings gratification,” Petkau says.
He continues: “I would say that my faith is just an equal part to that, to the influence my family and my parents have had in my life.
“I believe that I’ve been gifted with the opportunity to do these things, and my health, and I feel obligated in my faith to proceed ahead.”